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All roads lead to Ignacio

Motorcycle rally looks to top last year’s 10,000 attendees

Thousands of bikers are expected in La Plata County this weekend for the annual Four Corners Motorcycle Rally.

The rally began Thursday night with a light schedule of events and ends Saturday night.

“Last year, we had pretty close to 10,000 (in attendance),” said Mel Silva, the rally’s marketing director. “I’m not going to be surprised if we double that.”

The Ignacio rally now has Southwest Colorado to itself after the demise of the Sugar Pine Ranch Rally near Mancos. The rally west of Durango announced its dissolution last year after seven years.

Four Corners Motorcycle Rally competes primarily against the Thunder in the Rockies Bike Rally in Loveland, sponsored by a Harley-Davidson dealership. Four Corners is owned by the Ignacio Chamber of Commerce.

This year, Four Corners has a new zipline that allows customers to soar over rally grounds. An event called Extreme Midget Wrestling on Saturday evening is also new this year.

Four Corners’ signature event is Biker Bull Riding, Silva said. In that event, bikers can get on real bulls and see if they last 8 seconds. Biker Bull Riding is 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

The event also has live music from Jasmine Cain, Wild Country and many others. Admission to the rally is $15 a day. Online purchases are running triple last year’s, Silva said.

Many Durango businesses welcome the spillover revenue from the Ignacio rally about 25 miles away. El Rancho Tavern, 975 Main Ave., will host a Welcome Bikers Street Party from 4 to 9 p.m. . The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge train will be parked behind the tavern, with a professional photographer available to take photos.

“It was a success last year,” said Chip Lile, co-owner of El Rancho. Labor Day is one of the busiest weekends of the year for the popular Durango bar.

“It’s a great weekend,” Lile said. “It’s a very busy weekend with tourists, and with the bikers.”

Many Durango hotels and motels are filled this weekend. Peter Marshall, general manager of the DoubleTree Hotel, said his 159 rooms were booked for Wednesday night through Saturday. Marshall was unsure if most of the guests are bikers, or other holiday weekend tourists.

Silva said rally organizers focused their marketing by drawing a radius around Ignacio to anywhere within a day’s ride. That includes Albuquerque, Phoenix and Denver. That’s part of the event’s drawing power, Silva said.

“There’s 13 million people that live within a day’s ride of us,” he said.

cslothower@durangoherald.com



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